In the United States, 9/11 is symbolic of an attack on American values and American power. Here, 9/11 is symbolic of an attack on democracy, of the imposition of outside ideas (including an impressively heirarchical capitalist system) by a superpower (the United States, who funded the coup) on members of a formerly free society. For the youth, September eleventh demonstrates the failings of democracy--how democracy cannot work in Latin America because the United States won't let it work. Salvador Allende, a democratically elected socialist, was under constant attack by the U.S. from the time he started running for office. They tried to block his election, and when they couldn't, funded opposition newspapers and provided money and support (training, weaponry) for the armed forces who took over and ran the government until 1990.
My September 11th was actually very calm; I went to a friend's despedida in Vitacura, one of the richer comunas, where everything was quiet and protest free. Yesterday, on the Sunday after September 11th (because the proletariat doesn't have to work on Sunday, but they did have to work on the 11th), I went with two Spaniard friends to watch a protest aimed at the military police who have not been prosecuted for crimes committed during the dictatorship. Of course, the protestors weren't all there to protest human rights abuses. The communists came out, the gays came out, the militant anarchists came out. Everyone was marching to protest something about the government; everyone had a bone to pick (even if it wasn't the human rights bone.)
Some of the signs:
"No a la Impunidad"
One of the Spaniards carrying a "No a la Impunidad" sign
"Revolutionary Socialism: Power to the Workers"
"Truth and Justice Now"
"No Discrimination: Equality in Love"
Clase Contra Clase (one of the bigger, more organized groups. website: http://www.clasecontraclase.cl/)
"Our Only Option: Fight!! Popular Protest November 10th"
It's illegal for foreigners to protest, so I wasn't protesting. I didn't carry any signs or yell any slogans, but I (and the Spaniards, particularly the one with the sign) was still worried about what would happen if things heated up. We brought handkerchiefs and lemons just in case, and started the walk from metro station Los Heroes to the cemetery.
Things started out calm. Protestors handed out propaganda, chanted their slogans, caught up with old friends. I opened one of the pamphlets and started reading. "Yanqui, go home!" it screamed across the bottom of the page. I laughed and showed on of the Spaniards, "Try not to talk too much," he laughed back. When we started walking, we saw the police, dressed in full riot gear, carrying shields and accompanied by armored cars, that lined the roads and guarded the exits. Some were holding video cameras, others had digital cameras; everything was on film.
"Me da pena," said one of the spaniards, pointing his chin at the line of policemen.
"Don't worry about them," I said, full of false confidence, "They're just blocking traffic."
We walked a few blocks without anything noteworthy happening. Then, slowly, the crowd started to get more rowdy. An old man standing next to me solemnly gave the carabineros ("pacos"; the cops) the middle finger as we passed by; young people brought out cans of spray paint and started posting messages on the walls sometimes with stencils, sometimes free hand. The farther we walked, the thicker and sweeter the spray paint tainted air got. The farther we walked, the angrier the crowd got with the police. "PACOS CULIADOS!" one man cried, giving another one-fingered salute. The police didn't respond.
It had been calm for several blocks when we ran into the Spaniards' friend from school. "Is this as rowdy as it's going to get?" one asked. She laughed. "We're at the halfway point now," she said, "it's going to start picking up real soon. Did you bring lemons?"
Sure enough, one block later, things picked up. one of the protestors started throwing stones at the police lining the road. "PACOS CULIADOS!!" he screamed, and the next thing I knew, the whole crowd was sprinting forward. I heard what sounded like a high-powered hose, and then my eyes were burning. My throat burned--I spat and retched, but happily didn't throw up. My nose burned. My ears rang. I pulled my handkerchief up around my face and ran with the crowd, trying to get away from the gas.
Finally, it seemed like the spraying had stopped. I looked around and couldn't find the Spaniards; I moved forward along the sidewalk looking for them. The protestors started setting off firecrackers in the road, far away from the police; every time I heard a noise, I jumped because I thought we were going to get gassed again.
We did get gassed again; someone let off another firecracker, and the police decided they'd had enough. The crowd started running again; I was shoving my way through rows of people, all bunched together and running too slow to get away. Finally, I saw a chance to get out from behind them--the road forked. Most people took the left fork; I took the right fork, which seemed like the fastes way to get away from the burning. This turned out to be a bad decision; One protestor was violently angry, and decided he was going to tear down a police barrier along the right side of the road as an expression of this anger. And the police made a beeline for him, and the rest of us who had taken the right fork had to hop the barrier. I'm awful at hopping fences; someone was pulling me back off the thing, someone else was trying to get leverage off me, and I was on top of the barrier, screaming frustratedly, when someone else finally shoved me over, and I kept running down the street through the gas.
It finally stopped for real, and my throat and my eyes and my nose were still burning. Then I remembered the lemon: I pulled it out of my pocket, peeled it with shaking fingers, and took a bite. It worked: my throat stopped burning, and my head started to clear. I kept moving through the crowd, looking for the spaniards. There was no way I was leaving through the line of riot police lining the road, and there was no way I was staying there alone.
I finally found them, about a block ahead, and we kept on walking to the cemetary, where there were groups of protestors posted at all the major grave sites of revolutionary figures from the '70s, giving speeches, playing music, and praising the struggle of their compatriots that day, and in years past.
We stayed for about half an hour; then the spaniard's friend found us, and told us it was time to leave. "Why?" we asked; it was only one in the afternoon.
"That wasn't anything before," she answered. "You're not from here, and you can't afford to get caught by the cops, and you're not used to the way they're going to start treating people soon," she said. "We'll walk through the cemetary so you can see it, but then you have to go."
We were all exhausted from a long night before and the morning of sprinting, so we nodded and walked back through the cemetary, towards the entrance.
When we got there, the entrance was lined with police. We were about 40 yards away from the gate when they started spraying more gas into the street. I don't know why--we didn't see or hear anything happening outside. All I know is that I saw two armored vehicles go in two opposite directions, spraying gas while the people in the street ran away. A woman next to us was holding her baby and staring out at the entrance. She covered the baby's face with a blanket, and we all stayed back from the entrance as more and more police came to guard it. About one hundred fifty police in the end, I think, with their shields raised, in groups of six or seven, stood there, some taking video of the street, others holding shields, still more with their hands over their guns. We stayed still behind them for ten minutes; when they thought the threat had passed, they started to retreat and we saw our chance to leave.
We left, very quietly, through the front gate after about half the police had retreated into the cemetary. Outside, the air was still heavy with gas. vendors lined the streets, munching on their lemons. We walked to the next metro station, passing more protestors giving speeches and standing around; finally, we walked exhaustedly onto the metro and started the long ride home.
Being an outsider on the inside of this kind of political action made me ask some questions that I really don't know how to answer. I observed an almost bizarre ritual, in which both sides knew that the other side would not hesitate to respond with violence, and so both sides overreacted to each others' smallest actions. The protestors reacted to the mere police presence with shouts; the police reacted to the throwing of pebbles with gas. What about either of these reactions is reasonable?
Who is right here? How effective is this kind of protest if the police do not hesitate to use force, and if the crowd is small enough and calm enough that it's unlikely to create state-wide political change? If this kind of protest is ineffective, why is it the kind most commonly seen not just in Chile, but in Latin America generally? If this kind of protest is ineffective, what kind of protest would be more effective?
And the answer is, I just don't know.
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